September 2017 Event Epilogue - "Event Horizon"

Gonzo Masamune watched the skies as the Spire hummed with what was obviously psionic power. He had made the journey back to the Spire unscathed, following the protocols that he himself had created to ensure that the Spire remain difficult to get to. He had already had a new one in mind. He had taken the cue from the Pitt-Jolies, that had long taken to making sure even he didn’t know when the supplies would come in nor the rotation of the NBA mercs. Initially they had claimed it was to keep the Salvation Army away from their foothold east of Holywood, but over time he had found out that wasn’t the case. When his suspicions had first welled up inside him, he had left to seek answers. He had been away from the Spire for over a year hunting down the information that had been kept from him during the construction of the Spire some three or so years ago. What he had discovered, was fully realized in the old crumbling pages of some Pre-Fall weapon referenced as the SDI. It had been built by a leader before the Fall, someone named Raygun, who had by every account he came across designed it as his namesake - the types of weapons wielded from the earliest of the Telling Visions that used no bullet as it's ammunition. Gonzo had been raised as a guard to the Pitt-Jolies his whole life, and had heard many iterations of the War amongst the Stars. He knew that the nickname of the weapon was called thus, and when he read what how the SDI was designed - he then understood the concept of what the Spire was.

Yet despite what he learned, his loyalty to the Pitt-Jolies never wavered. It was re-affirmed this past trade by his eyes and ears in nearby El Dorado, where a man named Mamion had been allowed to sow the seeds of tyranny. He had tried to warn the town of their impending doom, but it had been too late, and he had too short a time to find someone he could really trust. The Hellions had sided with the forces of House Metzen, and were marching on the lone radio tower. He would defend this weapon, this “death star”, whose purpose was only hinted at with the ancient texts. While the Pitt-Jolies did terrible, awful things, they did so in their quest for peace and the return to the world before. To keep the chaos of the Wastes at bay. The long winter loomed dark and terrible in his mind, as thunderclouds waxed off in the extreme distance, ominous in the heavy heat of the day. As if to echo his thoughts, the Spire spoke once more, the energy palpably causing his entire body to vibrate focused at this close proximity, moving through the radio dish and moving outward. The ancient words of a man centuries dead rang loudly across the environs of El Dorado as the voice of the Signal, echoing as if from eternity...

“You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future... not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world, it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man, that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under "M" for Mankind - in The Twilight Zone...”

They had been running from the Muppet at full sprint when the world had gone dark. Many then they had found themselves on the ground, being woken harshly as they were knocked about by the crazed madman covered in purple furs, as it beat upon them with the severed limb of one of their fellows. Whatever had caused them to fall unconscious hadn’t affected it, and it had leaped about its prey now cornered, killing and cavorting in the final act of the chase. It had not managed to kill all by the time Gabriel himself was awoken by the creature. he quickly used the injectable, drew his gun the next second and started firing as his troops rallied to his effort and joined in. The ensuing fight left him with only a half score of his fighting force of 50, but the beast was finally brought down, the winding tendrils of the Gravemind probably still dragging the body slowly into the earth behind them as they continued to sprint towards the town’s walls. They had made the headlong run for the El Dorado just in case there was any others of its ilk in pursuit, and had only stopped their mad dash in at the view arrayed below them. Knight-Captain Gabriel Metzen viewed the scene below with horror, as the remaining troops at his side stood silent in the small copse of trees that overlooked the rolling hills of the south end of El Dorado. Hundreds of bodies littered the floor, as if from a great battle, little movement save for the red moving vines near the river’s edge. Drifting over the dead, moved wraith-like forms, black and nebulous in the distance,. They paused by many of the inert bodies, and when they moved again the still figures they stopped at were gone, as if taken by the Gravemind. He motioned his troops forward, and by the time they had reached the bottom of the hill, the black shadowy forms were gone. The rest of the bodies lying on the ground began to move, belying the recently dead they had appeared from afar...

The study of one Victor Frankenstein had once again gone silent, the snoring sounds of the doctor playing from his prone figure on the ground where he had stood moments before, the only sound in the macabre chamber of death. All around him the horrific experiments he had set up littered the tables sat inert, where for the second time during the weekend he had delighted in the odd energy that had come from the Voice of the Signal, heralding that his life’s labors could continue anew. He had worked frantically, unsure of when his time to work would end. He had poured bubbling concoctions that had taken time to carefully prepare, feverishly writing notes and taken measurements, and poured over the pre-Fall contraption where he set his test smears on panes of glass. His fever had started to calm again, his logical and methodical mind studiously pondering the dearth of information he recorded, when he heard the Voice once more. He had howled in rage at that moment, falling to the ground as the grusome doppelgängers he had constructed ceased their gruesome erratic motions. Behind Victor’s slumbering form, on top of a table next the wall, the red tendrils entrenched in the dead Psions’s brain waved in the air, unaffected by the voice of the Signal...